China Relief Efforts Off to Late Start in Philippines

A medical tent set up by the Chinese Red Cross Society in Tacloban City following Typhoon Haiyan.

TACLOBAN, Philippines—On the lawn in front of city hall here, a small group of Chinese aid workers scurried in and out of large white bivouacs, tending to a few Filipino residents seeking help for minor ailments – coughs, fevers and skin rashes.

More than two weeks have elapsed since Typhoon Haiyan struck this city, the capital of Leyte province and one of the most badly damaged by the storm. But this medical center—a modest three-tent affair run by China’s Red Cross Society—has barely started operations, seeing its first patients well after most severe medical complaints were addressed.

Set up over the past weekend, the center marks China’s first disaster-relief effort in the Philippines since Haiyan hit, leaving at least 5,240 dead and displacing millions from their homes.

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Chun Han Wong for The Wall Street Journal

A medical tent run by the Chinese Red Cross Society in Tacloban City, one of the places hit hardest by Typhoon Haiyan. Aid teams from China are just arriving, more than two weeks after the storm hit.

It also reveals a marked change in Beijing’s stance on disaster-relief aid to the Philippines, a bitter geopolitical rival it has clashed with increasingly of late over competing territorial claim to parts of the South China Sea.

After international observers ridiculed an initial $100,000 aid offering as stingy, the Chinese government upped its pledge to $1.6 million and committed state medical resources to typhoon-hit areas.

Apart from the Red Cross team, a Chinese hospital ship—staffed by 100 doctors and equipped with 300 beds and advanced medical hardware—has been attending to patients since it arrived off Tacloban’s coast Sunday, while a separate medical-relief team with 51 government volunteers has fanned out across southern Leyte.

On its second day of operations, the Red Cross medical center saw little if any of the life-threatening ailments and conditions that afflicted residents in the typhoon’s immediate aftermath. About 50 people visited the center on Monday, mostly complaining of coughs, flu and skin irritations, doctors said.

Sun Shuopeng, leader of the Chinese Red Cross team, said his group’s delay in responding to the deadliest typhoon in the Philippines’ modern history was not due to unwillingness to provide aid.

“We had been preparing for deployment since the disaster struck, and were waiting for the Philippine Red Cross to officially invite us to assist,” Mr. Sun said. “Once we received word from the Philippines, we moved out within hours.

Regardless of the delay, Tacloban residents who visited the center said they were grateful for the medical care they received.

One of them was Elesea Tubigon, a wiry, 75-year-old woman whose chronic respiratory ailment worsened in the wake of the typhoon. Her sister-in-law, Gina Tubigon, kept her company and helped translate doctors’ advice from English to Tagalog.

“We are blessed that the Chinese have come,” said 47-year-old Ms. Tubigon. “My sister-in-law’s condition acted up after Yolanda, and we didn’t know where else we could go,” she said, referring to Typhoon Haiyan by its local name.

“I know the relationship between the Philippines and China is not good, but we’re very thankful for the help,” she said.

The equipment—including an X-ray machine and an electrocardiogram—will be donated to local authorities when the team departs. Team members, meanwhile, are pushing into previously inaccessible areas to help locate victims’ remains.

The Chinese Red Cross also has plans to deploy a second team to the Philippines to construct longer-term shelters for displaced residents, said Mr. Sun. The group is working with its Philippine counterparts to assess local housing needs before determining the size of this additional aid, he added.

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